Saturday, November 9, 2013

Miss Carter Avery

We have a baby! She is now 16 days old, but those 16 days have gone by so fast. It seems like she has always been here.

She came 8 days before her due date, which I was convinced was not going to happen. I needed her to come on her due date so I could finish up some projects for my Master's program and take a midterm. But Carter came on her own time.

This is the story of how I had a natural childbirth-even if that wasn't the plan.

The day before, October 23, I felt great. Several times that day I was asked if I was feeling anything. I had not. I had not had one contraction or even fake contractions. I felt normal-or as normal as one can feel while 9 months pregnant. I planned on going to work the next day. I had parent conferences scheduled, tests printed, papers to grade, etc. 

I had class that night which ended an 1 1/2 hour early, so I used that free time to go to bed. I was sleeping by 9pm. At midnight, I woke up with some cramps. Nothing too major. I got up, walked around a bit, got out the heart monitor to make sure the baby was still alive (she was) and went back to bed. Around 1am, I realized that I wasn't going to get any sleep with my "cramps" (I was refusing to call them contractions). I went to the couch and downloaded an app to track my cramps. They were happening about every 3 minutes and were about 1 minutes long, average. But I wasn't in too much pain. And she wasn't due for another 8 days!

I eventually decided to run a warm bath and sit in there for awhile. Things slowed down a bit and were less intense. However, when I got out, that was not the case. At 4 am,  (I was still calling them cramps in my head) I had decided that I probably shouldn't go to work that day and I started timing again. They were 2-3 minutes apart and lasting 1-2 minutes. 

A little before 5am, I woke up Chris because I realized that I was in a lot of pain and just in case I had to go to the hospital, I probably shouldn't be driving myself. He called into work and I called the hospital. The nurse told me to drink some water, take a tylenol and lay down on my left side. If I didn't feel better in an hour, then I should come in.

Well, I called into work and decided to take a shower while Chris got some tylenol. By the time he got back, I guess I sounded like I was in pain and he decided we should go to the hospital right away and not wait an hour. But I really wanted to finish my shower, so I sent him to pack a bag while I suffered in the shower. I was still sure that these cramps would go away and that I would be coming back home before the end of the day. Chris kept trying to rush me, which was the one time I snapped at him. I kept telling him to be patient with me. 

At 6 am we were on the road and I was kind of screaming by this point. It hurt. I have never had such bad cramps in my life. We made it to the hospital around 6:30 and I had to stop a couple of times walking in because of the pain. (I did not want to be dropped off and walk in all by myself while Chris found a parking spot.)

We got checked in and into a room and  I heard the worst words of my life. "Well girly, you are at 9cm." I knew that I was not going to get an epidural which was not the plan. I did not want to feel the pain- the pain I had already felt for 7 hours. At 6:58, I was at 10 cm and time to push.

I pushed for 2 hours. The on-call doctor said that she thought the baby would be there by 7:30. No such luck. I was just hoping to have her out by the time our families showed up. They were an hour away. That also didn't happen. My doctor came in around 8:30 and mentioned using a vacuum to help get her out. And at 8:50 I asked her to use it. 

At 9:03am, Miss Carter Avery Stowe was born. She was 7 pounds, 7 ounces and 20 1/2 inches long. And she had a lot of hair. 

Life is mostly definitely different now. I don't really have a sense of time as I get used to being on her schedule for the moment. Chris took off a week of work and had to go back this last Monday. That was hard, I wish he could stay home with us forever. 

She is mostly a good baby. She cries when she is hungry. She doesn't like her feet touched, and she doesn't like her feet covered up with a blanket. She hasn't really liked sleeping in her crib, but I think I found a solution for that. 

She is just adorable and I really can't imagine our lives without her. 



3 comments:

Symantha said...

I LOVE HER!!! I wish I could be there!

Britt Hanson said...

Hi Randi! You might not remember me, but I'm Kyle Hanson's wife. We met once at Shauna's. I somehow found your blog off of Kyle's facebook, I think, and wanted to say congrats! Carter is darling! I also wanted to comment to say that I've read some of your past blog posts, and it seems like we have similar taste in books, and I've added a few books you've read to my goodreads "to read" list. I hope you don't mind! Again, congrats to you and Chris!

Mauren said...

Not sure how, but I hadn't heard this story before. Craziness! Great job though! Chelsea had an epidural with her first and then did the other 4 naturally. She said the recovery is significantly faster without the epidural and she prefers it that way now.

Anyway, congrats momma! One of these days I need to meet this little girl of yours. To think that I've met Raelyn who lives in Utah but not Carter who lives in the same area of the country is just crazy. :) Hope you're loving motherhood!